Lately, it has become common to allow devices, like CPE's such as set-up boxes, voice-over IP devices, laptops, modems, routers, gateways and the like, to be configured via a network by means of an autoconfiguration server. There exist several protocols to do remote management, such as for instance TR-069 or SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).
TR-069 is an abbreviation for Technical Report 069, and is a DSL Forum technical specification entitled CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP). This protocol is intended for the communication between a CPE and an Autoconfiguration Server (ACS), and defines an application layer protocol for remote management of end user devices. CWMP includes both a safe autoconfiguration and the control of other CPE management functions within an integrated framework. The TR-069 remote management protocol consists of an object model in which remote procedure calls (RPC's) are invoked for bidirectional communication between a CPE device and an ACS.
In the TR-069 CPE WAN management protocol, a session or transaction session is defined as a contiguous sequence of CWMP transactions between a CPE and an ACS, wherein a session may span multiple TCP connections. A transaction is defined as a message exchange between a CPE and ACS consisting of a single request followed by a single response, initiated either by the CPE or by the ACS.
From the time a session is initiated until the session is terminated, the CPE must ensure the transactional integrity of all parameters accessible via the CWMP. During the course of a session, all configurable parameters of the CPE must appear to the ACS as a consistent set modified only by the ACS. In other words, throughout the session the CPE must shield the ACS from seeing any updates to the parameters performed by other entities. This includes both the values of configurable parameters as well as the presence or absence of configurable parameters and objects. In order to ensure the transactional integrity of the session, it may e.g. be necessary, for the CPE, in exceptional cases, to terminate a LAN-side management session, such as a SNMP session or an CLI session, in order to meet CWMP session establishment requirements.
For example in the case of home network management, multiple management actors/agents will manage the different devices in the home network. Due to the TR-069 protocol constraints stated above, near-real-time management using the TR-069 protocol becomes problematic since the TR-069 management agent requires this transaction integrity at session level. This will either exclude other management agents from managing the device since they could alter the state of the device during a TR-069 session, or the TR-069 management agent is presented with a view on the device state that does not correspond to the actual device state since other management interfaces are configuring the device during a session.
In order to allow simultaneous management of different management agents in a device by multiple management actors, a solution proposed in the prior art is to have a one-to-one correspondence between a TR-069 session and a TR-069 transaction. However, this solution has the significant overhead of establishing a session, executing a transaction and clearing the session, and this for all transactions that need to be performed. Additionally, during a session, the current view on the data to be managed must be retrieved by the ACS in order to correctly execute the transaction. This solution causes significant processing overhead both at the CPE and the ACS.
In the present application, by way of a non-limiting example, reference is made to the TR-069 protocol, however without excluding any equivalent protocols, either already existing or to be developed in the future, on which the present invention can be applied.